October 15, 2012

Congratulations to Al Roth!

Congratulations to Al Roth, co-winner of the 2012
Nobel Prize in economics for "the theory of stable allocations and the
practice of market design." In an
earlier post, I labeled Al the ““pied piper of repugnance,” due to his work on repugnance, kidney exchange, and similar taboo
trades. His research is nearly always
cited as one of the best examples of the use of sophisticated economic tools to
find solutions to daunting real-world problems, from the shortage of available
kidneys for transplantation to the placement of students in urban school
districts to the matching of medical residents with hospitals.

As
I’ve mentioned before, one of the things that you should know about Roth
(in addition to his important market design work) is that he is one of the most
generous people you’ll ever meet. Roth
was at Duke in 2011 to discuss a paper, Organ Allocation Policy and the Decision to
Donate, and during his one-day visit managed to present his own
paper, speak to my Taboo Trades seminar about kidney
matching, meet with Duke students studying the market for judicial clerks (Al’s
prior work includes the study of judicial clerkship markets, with co-authors
Richard Posner and Christine Jolls), provide guidance to various faculty
(including me) about their own research projects, and hang out in the faculty
lounge and at dinner acting like a completely normal person. None of this really should have surprised me
– Al’s support and generosity with graduate students is well
known, and he had been incredibly approachable in my prior interactions
with him. But it did impress me.

Anyway, it’s always nice to see great things happen to
deserving people. So, congratulations to
Friend of The Lounge, Al Roth!